Homemade Ravioli

A picture perfect dinner

Naturally, we weren't going to let V's pasta-making classes and all of our pasta eating in Italy be for naught. The moment, we had that pear and cheese ravioli, V went ahead and ordered a pasta-making machine. For the past week, we've spent a good portion of our days making ravioli. I am happy to say that we've finally reached the point, where the ravioli are respectable to blog about. We made some rather impressive pear and cheese ravioli over the weekend but scrambling to finish on time for our potluck meant no time to take pictures. Tonight, however, I was free to snap away as much as I wanted.

All stacked up and ready to go.

We also decided to branch out tonight and try a new filling (another one we tasted at Zeb): potatoes and sausage. Step by step instructions below.

Making the Filling:

This one yummy and easy to make. Just have to cook the potatoes long enough to mash them with a fork. For the sausage, we bought Italian sausage links and removed the skin around it so we could break up the meat.

Mashed potatoes on left with seasoning
Italian sausage on right

Dough Making and Rolling:

Pasta dough is a lot easier to make than I had originally thought. All that's needed are eggs and semolina (aka pasta) flour. The key to use the right ratios (which for a few days, we weren't): 3 eggs for every 2 cups of flour.  The pasta rolling machine makes it pretty easy to get the dough to the right thickness. For ravioli, you have to roll it through 9 times to get to level 9 which is the thinnest option. We also, (quite wisely I may add because it made the process a lot easier), bought a ravioli making contraption which allowed us to fill and make 12 perfectly sized raviolis. 

Rolling out the dough (...9 times)
Putting the dough into the ravioli pouches

Putting 1 + 2 Together:

Technically, you need a rolling pin to roll the second layer of pasta dough over the filled pouches but a full jar of pasta sauce worked quite well as an impromptu rolling pin. I'll have to make sure to pick one up this weekend.

Filled the pouches with filling
Covered the filling with another layer of dough.

Cooking the Ravioli:

Make sure not to overcrowd the ravioli when cooking it. For al dente perfection, cook for 2 minutes, move to sauce pan and cook for another minute. For pasta that's a little softer, leave the ravioli in the sauce for up to 3 minutes. I added the left over potatoes and sausage meat to the tomato sauce which made the sauce heartier (and more delicious).

Boiling Ravioli
Simmering Sauce

Plating Ravioli

Tradition demands that ravioli be plated in odd numbers. So make sure to always have an odd number on your plate! Sprinkle with pecorino cheese for extra saltiness and enjoy.

A plate of 13 raviolis. Bon Appetit!

The plan is to move on to spaghetti with truffle sauce and mushrooms next. And there are of course lots of Italian posts left and some other new eating adventures of Philly. Stay tuned :)